Competition Rules

By entering the Faculty of Humanities & Social Sciences Placement Blog Competition, you agree to comply with the following rules and outlined best practice:-

Consent from Placement Provider required

Remember that first and foremost you need to ensure that your placement provider consents to you keeping a placement blog. If they do not consent to this you must not attempt to participate in the competition or make any blog or engage in any similar online postings during your placement.

Considerations re Blog Content

You will need to think very carefully about the content of your blog and chose your words and the information you post with care. Please bear in mind that anything you post on your blog may have serious repercussions in the future, (people have been refused jobs or fired from their jobs because of material they posted on their blogs) so you need to take this very seriously.

What to include:-

You will be expected to post material pertaining to your placement and the relevant experiences you gain within the placement organisation. You should discuss such matters as, how those experiences have changed your perspective and how you have resolved any issues at hand. It is hoped that these blogs will provide a ‘real life’ insight into the placement for other students.

It may be helpful to include suggestions to other students regarding specific issues impacting the student placement experience.

We would also encourage you to expose your personality. Almost all really successful bloggers write about themselves, about families or movies or books or games, or they post pictures. People like to know what kind of a person is writing what they're reading. However, for purposes of blogging for this competition, you should endeavour to relate most of your personalised posts to actual business practice or occurrences within the placement organisation.

If you use quotations or any data or information from other sources, be sure to cite the source and properly attribute it to the author. You must also beware of copyright and other intellectual property issues and make sure that you do not post information belonging to a third party which would contravene the law in this respect.

Share your work. If there are documents or supporting files that are relevant to your post or idea, share them with your readers. Once again, be careful not to breach any intellectual property law or share any private information belonging to a third party.

Try to add value and provide worthwhile information to other students and give them a real insight into your placement.

As a general rule of thumb, behave in an online social space as you would expect to behave in a face-to-face meeting and be mindful that what you write may well be public for a long time.

What NOT to include:-

You should consider blogging as an extension of the classroom. Therefore, any content that would be considered inappropriate for your classroom will also be inappropriate for the blog. This includes, but is not limited to absolutely anything which could be offensive, profanity; racist, sexist, discriminatory, threatening or any defamatory remarks;

You must ensure that you never disclose any sensitive, proprietary, confidential, or financial information about your placement organisation. This requirement covers far more than trade secrets and can include all manner of sensitive information, and/or unpublished research outcomes. If in doubt ask yourself “is it publicly available?”, if it is not, do not disclose it. You must not disclose any information about other employees and third parties, including clients.

Take care not to criticise or say negative things about any third party (such as placement supervisors, employers and employees/athletes/or research subjects within the placement organisation), which could be seen as a personal attack on them or make any derogatory statements about third parties.

Similarly, take care not to include information that may be considered personal and/or embarrassing to another person. Ask permission before disclosing conversations or other material that are private or internal to the placement organisation or the University (or where it is unclear if this is the case).

Never say anything or disclose information which could cause harm to the reputation of your placement provider.

Never disclose third party names, not even company ones. Use descriptive identifiers such as “a major defence contractor” or “a leading entertainment company” as an alternative to actual names.

You must not upload any content, images, files or links to any other web site or otherwise use the blog in a way that infringes on the intellectual property rights of any third party. For your protection, do not post any material that is copyrighted unless (a) you are the copyright owner, (b) you have written permission of the copyright owner to post the copyrighted material on your blog, or (c) you are sure that the use of any copyrighted material is permitted by the legal doctrine of "fair use."

Never write anything you would not want a potential employer to read. You should consider the blog an extension of your CV. What you write may be seen by an employer as a reflection of your personal character, professionalism and quality of work.

Safety Considerations

When using your blog, you should take great care of your own safety and protect your personal information. Never disclose personal information such as your address, phone number or your whereabouts at a particular time. Don’t make yourself a target to scam artists or predators.

General Rules

The University has the right at all times to:

view all blog postings made by you whilst on placement;

moderate any such postings as it may deem necessary;

remove or require the immediate removal of any such postings which contravene these rules.

Entries may be as short as 1-2 paragraphs.

To be considered for short-listing you will have to submit at least 7 blog postings between the period from June 2017 to June 2018. Blog postings must be spread throughout the placement period to be eligible for prizes, with at least one update in every two month period.

Legal Considerations and compliance with policies & procedures

Remember that you are personally responsible for your blog and its’ content/output and you can be held personally liable for it. The University of Bath will assume no legal responsibility should outside parties pursue legal action against you for your blog/postings.

You must familiarise yourself with University’s relevant policies and procedures and ensure that in creating and using your blog you comply with these at all times. These policies and procedures include:-

If your blog can be accessed by a link from any University site on any University server, it should also have a link to the University’s Disclaimer, (this is also available on the University’s website).

In any event, you must also ensure that your blog contains a disclaimer of your own, which must make it clear that the content does not reflect the views of the University or your placement provider. You could use the following wording:-

"The material on this site is my own and doesn’t necessarily represent the views of the University of Bath or [insert name of placement organisation]".

The University of Bath logos must not be used on your blog.

You also agree to fully indemnify the University for any breach by you of these rules. This means that if the University incurs any expense, costs or fees of any nature in defending any legal action brought against it as a result of a breach by you of these rules, it may recover such sums in full from you.

Judging & Prizes

Students in years one, two and four of undergraduate programmes in each of the Faculty’s departments can vote for their favourite blogger from their department. The winner from each department will be awarded £100.

There will be one overall Faculty winner from the departmental prize winners, voted for by a panel of judges including the Dean, Associate Dean (Learning & Teaching) and the Faculty Placements Manager. The overall winner will receive an additional £150 (i.e. £250 in total).

The judging panel will choose the final winner based upon the insight provided by their blog, its style, content, and entertainment value. Their decision shall be final.

The winners will be announced to all Faculty students by the end of July 2018.